by Ben Botkin, Oregon Capital Chronicle
October 4, 2024
For nearly a year, Loran Beck believed he did not belong in an Oregon state prison – even though Oregon’s governor sent him there.
On Sept. 19, a Multnomah County District Court judge found that Beck, not the governor, was correct. After Judge Michael Greenlick heard the case, he ordered Beck’s immediate release.
“I don’t want to spend another day drafting an opinion if it’s going to delay his release by another day because I do believe he has served approximately eight months longer than was legal – legally allowable,” Greenlick said, according to a court transcript of the hearing.
Beck, 46, is among a growing group of Oregonians who have successfully sued Gov. Tina Kotek while incarcerated and earned court orders that secured their immediate release. For four people, judges from four different courts have found Kotek’s orders to revoke their commuted prison sentences illegally extended their sentences. Another case is pending.
Oregon woman endures fear and despair in illegal imprisonment in Coffee Creek prison
The growing number troubles advocates for the incarcerated in Oregon and raises questions about how many other similarly-situated people are sitting in state prisons illegally. During the pandemic, then-Gov. Kate Brown commuted the sentences of more than 1,000 people.
Since Kotek took office in 2023, she revoked the commutations of at least 122 of these people, sending them back to prison, court records show. But in cases like Beck’s and the three others, attorneys have successfully argued that Kotek’s orders unconstitutionally extended sentences.
“We now have several court orders stating that Oregonians have been illegally imprisoned as a result of the governor’s actions, and it’s extremely disturbing that it took the intervention of the courts to right these wrongs,” said Malori Maloney, Beck’s attorney and associate director of the Oregon Justice Resource Center’s FA:IR Law Project that works to address systemic failures in the justice system. “The governor should have corrected her error as soon as it became clear that their imprisonment was unlawful.”
Governor’s office says little
Roxy Mayer, a spokesperson for the governor, would not answer a detailed list of questions about the case, including whether the four rulings have changed how the governor handles commutation recovations or whether she has concerns about future court cases or the legality of her orders in other cases that involve incarcerated people.
Instead, Mayer sent a vague four-sentence statement that said the governor reviews each case individually as requested by district attorneys.
“The governor respects the court’s decision and will take this ruling under advisement,” Mayer said, adding that the governor is “committed to a transparent and consistent process.”
Public court records and interviews show how the process unfolded – and how the governor’s order illegally kept Beck in prison.
“I think a huge issue that we’re seeing across the board with the governor’s commutation revocations is the lack of transparency,” Maloney said. “We don’t know for certain why the governor revoked his commutation because the revocation order just says that she has found that he violated a condition of the commutation. It doesn’t say what the condition is, when the violation happened, what she’s relying on to make her decision.”
The governor should have corrected her error as soon as it became clear that their imprisonment was unlawful.
– Malori Maloney, attorney with Oregon Justice Resource Center
Yanked back to prison
Beck’s trip to prison – and back again illegally – started in August 2019, when he was convicted in a felony aggravated theft case in Clackamas County.
He was sentenced to 36 months in prison and 24 months of post-prison supervision – five years total.
In February 2021, Brown commuted the last 11 months of his prison sentence and converted that portion to supervision. That meant Beck had 35 months of supervision after prison and he was scheduled to complete that in January 2024.
In June 2023, Beck was charged with assault in Marion County. A judge allowed him to remain free while that case proceeded, and he checked in regularly with his probation officer. By then, Beck was working full-time as a recreational vehicle mechanic in Dallas.
With the case pending and a notification from the Clackamas County District Attorney’s Office, Kotek revoked his commutation. She ordered him back to prison in November 2023. Loran Beck is one of four people released from prison after challenging Gov. Tina Kotek’s orders that revoked their sentence commutations. (Courtesy of Oregon Justice Resource Center)
Beck said he could tell something was off when he checked in with his parole and probation office for his routine monthly visit. First, his supervising officer asked him to verify his contact information.
“After he verified everything, another parole officer bombarded into the office, slammed me against the desk, and they just started telling me, ‘Don’t resist,’” Beck said in an interview with the Capital Chronicle.
Officials told him his commuted sentence was revoked but had little to share beyond that.
“He said, ‘I don’t have any further information. It’s out of my hands,’” Beck said.
At the time, Beck was about two months away from completing his post-prison supervision – and the entirety of his five-year sentence. For about two weeks, Beck sat in the Polk County jail, struggling to get answers from anyone.
“Finally on day 14, they just came and rolled me up and said, ‘You’re going back to prison,’” Beck said. “I was dumbfounded.”
At the time, Beck had not been convicted in the Marion County case. In December, while in prison, Beck pleaded to the assault charge in Marion County, a misdemeanor that required just 17 days in jail with credit for time served.
But for Beck, the stay in prison would last much longer. First, he went to Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville, a women’s prison and intake center for new inmates.
For several months, he stayed in Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem before he was transferred to Columbia River Correctional Institution, a minimum-security prison in Portland.
Beck persisted in his quest for answers.
“I never stopped trying to get information,” he said. “I asked every counselor I had interactions with why I was being returned to prison, what was going on.”
Beck said he was unsatisfied with vague answers.
In January, his original five-year sentence was due to end. But with Kotek’s order, he was expected to spend 11 months in prison. That pushed his projected release to October, effectively extending his original sentence.
By July, attorneys with the Oregon Justice Resource Center took on his case, filing a petition with the Oregon Supreme Court that alleged Kotek illegally revoked his commutation and denied him due process without a hearing, all while extending his original sentence.
The Oregon Supreme Court declined to take on the case, though two justices dissented. The center filed another petition in the Multnomah County Circuit Court, securing his release. Greenlick, in his ruling, also found that Beck should not serve any supervised release after prison.
Nobody thought I was gonna win. They were making fun of me for how hard I was trying.
– Loran Beck, formerly incarcerated Oregonian
Life in prison
Beck’s return to prison was overwhelming as he was yanked from the new life he started.
“My life was completely rebuilt,” he said. “I had completely reinvented myself when it comes to my profession. I came out, I wanted to start a new life for myself and I became an RV technician. And I finally found work that I really love to do.”
As the months wore on, he persisted through uncertainty about his incarceration and the Oregon Supreme Court turning down his first petition.
His fellow inmates doubted his case.
“Nobody thought I was gonna win,” he said. “They were making fun of me for how hard I was trying.”
They would later cheer him on as he packed up to leave.
Beck got his good news while seated in a viewing area of the prison’s law library, as he watched a Zoom connection of the legal proceedings. He had to fight back tears after he heard the judge’s decision.
“I would say it moderately restored my faith in the justice system that, you know, there’s at least somebody willing to look at it, and I’m very grateful for that,” Beck said.
Beck left the law library and told his friends that he won. They gathered around him to shake his hand and congratulate him. Meanwhile, a corrections officer told him to pack up.
“It was like it was a scene straight out of the movies,” he said. “The entire unit erupted into a deafening applause and just yelling. It was amazing. At that moment I realized we really won. Justice was actually served.”
Picking up the pieces
Within four hours, Beck left the prison, wearing a sweatsuit and holding a plastic bag of his belongings.
“They opened the door and said, ‘Have a nice day’ and that was kind of it,’” he said.
And then, just like that, he was walking down the road. Beck said he walked for about 45 minutes before a stranger lent him a cell phone. He called his girlfriend and she picked him up.
Beck is thankful for justice – and the recognition from the courts that he was unfairly treated.
Even so, life in the weeks since his release is not always easy. He lost thousands of dollars worth of tools when he went to prison. His motorcycle was stolen.
He works only part-time and is uncertain what the future holds.
“I just came out to everything being in shambles,” he said.
These days, Beck contemplates whether he should move away from Oregon, the state where he was born, raised and illegally confined in prison.
“I just don’t want to be in the state anymore – just my experiences that they can pull my freedom at any time,” he said. “I just don’t feel safe here. I feel pretty paranoid about it, and I honestly would like to relocate to Arizona or somewhere very, very far away.”
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